The Affect of Responsive Design on SEO

Mobile web design has been important for years now as traffic moves from a desk top to a mobile phone. That trend is bound to continue and it has made a challenge for web development teams to keep all of the functionality on a smaller screen. That is where responsive design shines and now if your site isn’t responsive you will get punished in the search rankings. So let’s look at the effect of responsive design on SEO.

What is Responsive Design?

The first step is defining responsive design. All it is is making sure that you website works and looks good across multiple screen sizes and resolutions. Your website needs to look just as good on a mobile phone as it does on a desk top and there can be no pinching or sideways scrolling. All of the buttons need to work and to fit your fingers.

Do I Really Need a Responsive Site?

Yes, you do. Responsive design isn’t a trend it’s a must. Not only will your customers and visitors demand it but Google does as well. It is necessary for user experience and accessibility, it is also crucial to SEO. Here’s how.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is one of the many factors that affect your SEO. Bounce rate is how much time that a visitor spends on your site. Once someone lands on your website, things like functionality, well laid out information and good design all affects how long they stay. When someone with a mobile device lands on your site and they constantly have to swipe and pinch in order to use the site they don’t bother, they just leave. That increases your bounce rate and a higher bounce rate affects your rankings. Here is a closer look at bounce rate and how you can improve it.

Load Time and Page Speed

How fast your website loads on a mobile device has become a very big deal in recent years. While mobile internet speeds have gotten faster, you also need to make sure that your site loads within 5 seconds. Responsive design help speed up load time on phones and tablets. Google has even taken that a step further with the AMP project.

User Experience

Modern web design is all about the user experience. When a user lands on your site on a mobile device and they have to scroll left and right along with up and down, it ruins the experience. The pictures don’t fit, the text is too hard to read and they leave. Mobile browsing isn’t new and it isn’t going away the onus is on you to make sure your visitors have a good experience.